Question

I would like to know if it’s possible to retrieve the .cs file that contains a certain class at runtime.

Ex. I have the “Type” that represents my class (public class Foo) and from that, I would like to retrieve the path to its parent file (“c:\foo.cs”).

Thanks

Edit: The purpose of this would be to show some classes’ name to the user in a ListView (populated programmatically) for example and when he double clicks on one of the ListViewItem, it opens the .cs file that contains the class in question.

Answer 1

It is possible, but there is no ‘magic’ way that I know of. You’ll have to add a method to every type you want to support this. Also it will only work if the .pdb file is available. _GetSourceFileName returns null without it.

using System;
using System.Reflection;

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        DumpFilenameForType(typeof(A));
        DumpFilenameForType(typeof(B));

        if (System.Diagnostics.Debugger.IsAttached)
        {
            System.Console.Write("Press any key to continue . . . ");
            System.Console.ReadKey();
        }
    }

    static void DumpFilenameForType(Type t)
    {
        MethodInfo mi = t.GetMethod("_GetSourceFileName", BindingFlags.Static | BindingFlags.NonPublic);
        if (mi != null)
            Console.WriteLine("Type '{0}' is located in '{1}'", t.FullName, mi.Invoke(null, null));
        else
            Console.WriteLine("Type '{0}' does not provide method _GetSourceFileName", t.FullName);
    }
}

// Some other file

public class A
{
    static string _GetSourceFileName()
    {
        return new System.Diagnostics.StackTrace(true).GetFrame(0).GetFileName();
    }
}

// Yet another other file

public class B
{
    static string _GetSourceFileName()
    {
        return new System.Diagnostics.StackTrace(true).GetFrame(0).GetFileName();
    }
}